Chapter 3: ERN SAUNDERS – Maryborough: The Early Years
Two Years – Age 16
Enter Ernest Saunders
After my father died[1], life became a struggle for survival; my mother received little assistance from family, other individuals, governments or welfare organisations. The Bowen branch of the Communist Party of Australia helped us most, with money, food and other goods[2].
I suspect that my Mother met Ernest Saunders through the Communist Party, because he certainly believed in and, to some extent practised, his version of communism.
Ern married my Mother at 12 noon on April 12 1947, in Mackay. None of her six sons attended the wedding. They had a two day honeymoon at Eungella, in the mountains west of Mackay. Ern convinced my Mother to give up smoking on arrival at their hotel room, although, she said, the process involved much screaming, shouting and throwing of shoes on her part. Apparently he had not previously mentioned that she would be giving up smoking, so it came as a bit of a wedding night surprise for my Mother.[3]
Early Days in Maryborough
When I was four we moved to Maryborough, without Austin and Allan, who had left home to work. Bert was to follow shortly after. Jimmy stayed at home until he married Peggy Sakerewski, when I was seven or eight.
Our Maryborough house had something of a history. I understand that it was first built in Memerambi, and then was moved some years later to a farm at Kilkivan, where it was used as a farm store. Ern bought it, then dismantled it, moved it to Maryborough, and rebuilt it.[4] While it was being put up in Maryborough, we lived in a rented house in a poorer part of Maryborough known as The Pocket, near the Albert State School.
I have one strong memory of playing in the back yard of our rented property, and finding two forked twigs which I used, with a small piece of string, to construct a toy clothes line that, to me, looked just like the one my mother used. (Was this early evidence of my strong feminine side?)
Something I cannot remember, but was told, is that one day, at the construction site, I backed into a fire and got slightly burnt. My brother Bert told me, many years later, I received my first belting as a result of this incident.
My brother Les started Prep School at the Albert State School, and one day ran home in terror because he had been chased by a bull. (I think it was just a harmless cow that merely mooed at him).
18 James Street, Newtown
Most of my childhood memories (and there are not a lot of them apart from home and school) began when we moved into our house at 18 James Street, Newtown. Our much-travelled home was set on short stumps, just above a metre off the ground, on a one acre block.[5]
Primary School
I commenced my primary schooling at the Maryborough West State School, where one of my teachers was a Miss or Mrs. Schulz, who kept a huge jar of boiled lollies in the classroom for handing out to children fortunate enough to celebrate their birthdays on a school day. Every morning we sang the first verse of God save the King.
My teacher in Grade 2 or 3 was Mrs Churchill, who had beautiful red hair, and who took to me because she said I had wonderful, deep, blue eyes, just like her baby son.
Grade 4 brought Mr. Hills, who rode a motor bike and fell off it one wet day, coming to school with deeply lacerated face and arms. Mr. Gillen, my brother’s Grade 5 teacher, was a tall stringy man with crooked teeth, and a touch of temper. He dragged me into Les’ class one day to give his class a spelling lesson. I felt very important spelling long and difficult words at the time, but the bashing I got at lunchtime took away some of the inner glow.
I had Mr. Gillen too, in Grade 5, and he belted me all round the room one day just for reading a book. How unfair is that?[6] Teachers should be proud of literate students!
Grade 6 brought Polly Perkins, with a bullet-shaped head, glasses, and a certain amount of extra weight. He taught us Australian history by standing with his foot on the metal bar at the front of the first row of desks, waving his cane, and getting us to all yell together “Humanhovel! Humanhovel! Humanhovel!”, which was about two explorers who, I think, discovered the Hume Highway. It is a testament to his teaching style that I have never forgotten their names.
Mr. L. R. Black (Chooky) was our headmaster, who looked like a round rubber ball with a smaller round ball perched on top, standing on thin little legs. [7]
And for the music buffs among you, here is the first verse of the Newtown State School Song, to the tune of ‘Men of Harlech’:
Where the noble Mary River
Wanders slowly on for ever;
Where the stately pine trees quiver;
Stands the Newtown School.[8]
I was in Gordon House – the other three were Paterson, Lawson and Kendall.
About Ern
What did I know, as a child, of Ern Saunders?
He was a stern parent who often asserted, with pride, that he had no sense of humour. He set down rigid rules which had to be followed, inside and outside the house, and used the strap frequently for punishment for breaking the rules or for other misdemeanours.
Physically, he always seemed to be a giant of a man, and I was surprised, when I reached my full height of five feet ten and a half inches, that he and I were of similar height. He is first person I encountered who had a bullet-shaped head (Polly Perkins, the teacher, was the second one). From my earliest memory of him, his hair was receding. He brushed it backwards, and always kept it trimmed short. He was a bulky man, thickset but not fat, and immensely strong.
He spoke in a curious, soft, sometimes likeable voice, but a voice which, by inflection alone, without an ounce of added volume, could bring me to him, trembling, sure of punishment for something.
He wrote rarely, in a sprawling, hard-to-read scrawl, using atrocious grammar and spelling. He hated what he contemptuously termed ‘bookwork’. My mother did all the paperwork for his business.
His major passion in my early years was his garden – he grew everything he could possibly grow, provided it was edible. He appreciated flowers but, possibly due to the poverty of his own childhood and youth, he preferred food to beauty.
My mother tended the flower gardens in the front yard; he looked after the vast vegetable gardens that took up most of the large back yard. He grew:
Lettuce, cabbages, cauliflowers, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, pumpkins, spinach, zucchini, cucumber, broccoli, asparagus, radishes, mint, parsley, parsnips, turnips, sweet potatoes, squash, beetroot, peas, beans, marrows, egg fruit, rhubarb, rosellas, pawpaw, melons, water melons, custard apples, grapes, sugar cane, peanuts (not successfully), and even coffee beans.
He invested in a Fowlers Vacola bottling kit, and, at harvest time we bottled everything that was surplus – beetroot, tomatoes, pickles, jams, and chutneys, anything that might go bad before we got to use it. He experimented with wine, but the bottles exploded too frequently for his liking.
Ern was an inventor in his own rough way. He built our amazingly inexpensive hot water system which consisted of a fortyfour gallon drum with a large steel pipe down the centre, copper pipes coiled round the edges of the drum, and a small grate at the bottom. He filled the drum with dry sawdust gathered free of charge from local sawmills, (we collected it in sugar bags, and stored it in an old water tank outside the laundry door), tamped it all down, lit it through the grate at the bottom, and we had regular hot water for two or three days. We then cleaned out the drum, and refilled it with more sawdust.
When he first came to Australia Ern was a cane-cutter and labourer, but he learnt, somewhere along the way, to make mattresses and to do upholstery. He set up his own business in Bowen, and continued this occupation when we moved to Maryborough. He advertised as ‘Ern Saunders – The Mattress King’.
He was a man of simple pleasures – a few beers after work and at weekends, Sunday afternoon drives in the country, to Torbanlea, Howard, Tiaro and Teddington Weir, sometimes just along an interesting side road leading nowhere in particular. Occasionally we left home early on Sunday morning, and drove the long 24 miles to Hervey Bay. Occasionally we spent a weekend there, camping at Torquay or Scarness, rather than the more popular tourist spots, Pialba and Urangan.
At holiday time, usually Christmas and New Year, we packed the Morris Commercial van with a list of essential items as determined by Ern. The list covered nine pages in my mother’s small notebooks, and included everything we could possibly ever need. Torches and batteries, tents and tent pegs, Dripping and tinned food, matches and soap, clothing and bedding. Woe betide us if we forgot anything on the list.
We usually left home before five a.m., bound for places to the south. Toowoomba, Dalby, Leyburn, Clifton, occasionally the Gold Coast, and always the Mecca for Les and me, the City of Brisbane!
Ern always had business in Brisbane, buying canvas goods from George Pickers at Bulimba, mattress ticking from Bruce Pie on the north side. On our homeward journey the van was invariably crowded with bolts of material and boxes of assorted nails, screws, rivets and studs.
Our van, a Morris Commercial, was emblazoned on all sides with the large-lettered legend, in green letters on a cream background, “Ern Saunders – The Mattress King”. Ern dreamed up this effective piece of advertising himself. Many a time strangers in caravan parks and camping grounds would approach our van and ask Ern for quotes on jobs. His standard reply was that he was on holiday but, if ever they were in Maryborough, then, please call in.
One of our favourite overnight camping grounds was beside the river at Waterford, just south of Brisbane. There was a pub on the northern side of the river, camping ground on the south side. Mother and Ern often stopped at a pub for a beer or two in the beer garden, and Les and I sipped a lemonade or sarsaparilla.
One afternoon we parked at the Waterford Pub, and Ern was in the act of getting out and taking us all in for a drink. A man stepped down from a truck in the car park, and came across to Ern. After a few words, Ern told us all to stay in the car, and he went into the pub alone with the man. Ten minutes later, Ern came back, and we drove away.
Several years later I learned that the man was Ern’s brother Harry, who he had not seen for more than twenty years. They had quarrelled, and Ern had never forgiven his brother, or the rest of his family, with the exception of his sister Nancy Jones. Nancy lived in the village of Aylesham, near Canterbury, in Kent.
Aunty Nancy made our Christmases magical; she always sent us a parcel full of wonderful things – creamy toffees for my mother, bound copies of the Daily Mirror for Ern, books for Les and me.
Nancy had five children, Jack, Heather, Rosemary, Jennifer and Tony. Jennifer was close to Les in age, and Tony, the youngest, was my age or a little younger. Two or three times a year Les and I wrote to Jennifer and Tony respectively.
Without any explanation, we were told one day that we would not be allowed to write any more to our English cousins, and the parcels and communications stopped abruptly.
I only found out in 1987 that this was because Aunty Nancy had traced Harry through the Salvation Army, and re-established communication with him. She then wrote to Ern, asking him to contact Harry with a view to making peace with him. Ern wrote back advising that he had no intention of doing so and, if she continued to communicate with Harry, Ern wanted nothing more to do with Nancy, either. A hard man.
Ern hated any type of gambling.[9] Sometimes, customers bought him casket tickets in appreciation of his upholstering or mattress making. They went straight into the bin. School raffle tickets were returned the next day, unsold.
Ernie Bandholz, a carpenter, was Ern’s closest friend. He had a totally bald head, huge, calloused hands, and a perpetual smile that showed his crooked teeth. He lived in Cheapside Street, two blocks from us, and kept goldfish in an old bath tub in his back yard.
In those days Maryborough held an annual Marykhana Carnival. A local songwriter wrote a song which was played incessantly on the radio in the weeks leading up to the event.
The Marykhana Song[10]
“It’s Maryborough calling,
We want to let you know
About the Marykhana,
That’s what we’ve named out show.
A hundred years of progress
Have spelled prosperity,
And made our happy city
A hub of industry.
Come and see our city gay,
Here’s our invitation;
You’ll be glad if you take part
In this our celebration.”
Ironically, the Marykhana came into being just as a long, continuing decline began for Maryborough industry. Sawmills closed down and Walkers Shipyards, our largest employer, drastically scaled down their operations. Many people drifted off to work in other towns.
One evening of Marykhana was given over to fireworks, charity stalls and other entertainment in the Botanical Gardens. We went along with most of the community, because it offered something more exciting than the normal radio serials and quiz shows.
I remember going to Marykhana one evening, and we met Ernie Bandholz, smiling, just as a ticket-seller approached us with raffle tickets. Ern immediately refused to buy, whereupon Ernie bought two tickets, one for Ern. When Ern said he didn’t want a ticket, Ernie insisted, and Ern’s face suddenly paled. Even in the shadows I could see how it upset him, but Ernie was the closest friend he had.
For a long moment, Ern just looked at Ernie, holding out the ticket, then said, “all right, but you can hold it for me.” That satisfied Ernie, and shortly afterwards we separated.
Later in the evening, Ernie sought us out. He held in his hands a huge white plaster elephant, which he thrust triumphantly into Ern’s hand. “Congratulations, mate”, he said, “your ticket won the raffle.” Ern took it with a trembling hand.
Les and I were agog with excitement as we took the elephant home; not, I suspect, because of the gift itself, but because we had actually won a prize.
Ern took the elephant to work with him in the morning, and we never saw it again. Sometime later we learned that he had donated it to a charity shop.
I have thought a lot about Ern along the years, because he was the most dominant figure in my life from age two to age sixteen. He influenced my life in my thoughts and actions, in terms of what I understood about life and the world in general, and how I considered myself.
These are some Ern’s credos which I absorbed throughout my childhood, many of them on a daily basis.
· Honesty is essential in all one’s dealings
· Gambling is totally wrong
· War is wrong
· There is no God
· Respect people
· Take your own responsibility at all times
· Security in your work is paramount
· Never forgive those who have wronged you
· Sport is a waste of time and effort
Unfortunately, I also learned a lot about me, as seen through Ern’s eyes, and, because I loved him and I respected him. I believed that his laws of living and his assessment of my character were right and true, probably because I was one of those children who become socialised, to a large degree, by their parents, without questioning any of it.
This is what I came to believe about myself:
· I am lazy
· I am stupid
· I will never achieve anything worthwhile in my life.
Even today, after having achieved some success in certain areas of my life, I frequently struggle with very poor self-esteem.
Ern never thought that I was useful in any activity that required manual skill or dexterity (although he DID teach me how to skip stones across water). I am not sure if this was because I was left-handed, or because Les tended to do things better than I.
Les learned to use hammers, saws and paint brushes, and to operate the industrial sewing machines and the fibre teasing machine in Ern’s shop. Ern taught him to drive, and to be a beekeeper.
My jobs were to sweep floors, clean yards, break down bales of fibre by hand to prepare it for the teasing machine, and to serve customers. I never thought that this was unfair, because I understood that Les was smarter than me.
Ern did not allow Les or I to visit or play with school friends or neighbours after school. In primary school we walked home straight after school, and helped our mother around the house. In high school it was off to the shop and help Ern.
I can only remember two occasions when we were allowed visitors – one Saturday morning Merv Stafford came to play with Les, and Ted Singleton came over for Les’ birthday once. I was allowed to visit Ian Turton once.
We weren’t allowed to play sport at school, and Les and I were library monitors on sports afternoons. On School or Interschool Sports days, a teacher had to stay with us in a classroom.
In our all-boys high school we were the only two not allowed to join the school cadets. We were also among the few who wore shorts in Grade 10, and who did not own bicycles.
Ern allowed us pocket money once we hit high school – it began at threepence a week, and increased to sixpence over the years. We never actually received this – it went into bank accounts; at least, some of it did.
Most of my allowance found its way back to Ern, through fines. He had two main punishments: fines or beltings. The scale ran something like this:
Fines: Dirty nails or face; late to a meal; didn’t set the table properly; untidy hair; not getting up when called in the morning. The fines ranged from one penny to threepence.
Beltings: Not coming when called; late home from school; walking home from school the wrong way; lying; not sweeping the sawdust from the car properly; backchat; reading in the car. He often deferred the beltings, telling me to let him know when I wanted it.
From the time I was nine or ten, mother and Ern often went on holidays and left Les and I at home to ‘batch’. These were times of glorious freedom and excitement for me (and Les). Once we were left for a few weeks with ‘Uncle’ Colin and ‘Aunt’ Mary, who had a small farm at Tinana, and I once went for two weeks to ‘Uncle’ Harry who was a crusty old farmer at Mt Bauple.
Not much happened worth telling at school for me. Ern wrote on my primary school homework to let the teacher know the mistakes I had made; and in high school particularly I was a figure of fun, and didn’t bother to study because I knew there wasn’t much point because of my stupidity. My year 10 Junior Certificate showed that I received 2 A’s (English and Mathematics B); 2 B’s (French and Latin; 2 C’s (Chemistry and Maths A) and 2 Fails (Physics and History).
One day when I was about 9, a man named Les Daniels knocked on our door – he was the Baptist Lay Minister and Sunday School teacher. He asked if Les and I would like to go to Sunday School. Ern agreed, although he was an atheist, because he thought it might improve our behaviour. After a year he took us out of it, because our behaviour hadn’t improved. He let me attend Dorothy Dempster’s School of Elocution for six months, but my voice didn’t really improve, so that finished too.
Les and I were allowed to join the Boy Scouts, and I stayed with that until I left home at age 16. I even rose to the dizzy height of First Class Scout AND Patrol Leader of the Magpie Patrol.
There! That’s my childhood done and dusted. Next we’ll move onto the next boring phase of my life, for which I know you are already eagerly anticipating!
Oops! Almost forgot. Les and I wrote a song when I was about 11. Here is most of it (what a memory the boy has!):
Don’t Rock the Boat
“Don’t rock the boat, dear”,
The old sailor cried;
“Don’t rock the boat”, he said,
And then he up and died.
Ten days later,
She died of broken heart;
Saying at the end,
“Tom and I could never part;
Tom and I could never part.”
They buried them out in the churchyard,
Under the old oak tree,
Dum-dee-dum-dee-dum-dum;
Dum-dee-dee-dee.[11]
[1] In Chapter 2 I wrote that my father died at age 38, which was wrong. He died on 28 September 1945, when I was almost 6 months old.
[2] Bowen is the only place in Australia which has ever elected a Communist Party candidate to Parliament.
[3] I have attached two Appendices to this Chapter, the first dealing with my Mother’s family history, the other with Ern’s earlier years. Ern’s provides some insights into his character, and perhaps some of the events which shaped him.
[4] The house was moved one more time, when it was moved out to Bidwill Road, Magnolia, to a five acre site where Mother and Ern lived for the last 15 years of his life.
[5] A very crude diagram with attendant notes will at some stage be sent as an Appendix
[6] It was, I will admit, a cheap Western novel, which may have influenced his decision to belt me.
[7] I don’t want to overly bore readers with names and trivial incidents, so Appendix 3 is a table which contains the names of all the people I can remember from these years
[8] Yes, I will sing it on demand.
[9] This is probably due to the falling out with his brother, which is related in Appendix 2
[10] I am happy to sing this for anyone who asks.
[11] Yes, I CAN remember the tune, and WILL sing it on demand.
No comments:
Post a Comment